(The Center Square) – Incumbent Chris Reykdal has officially won a third term as Washington’s superintendent of public instruction.

With nearly 160,000 votes statewide as of Wednesday, Reykdal is ahead of challenger David Olson by about 205,000 votes.

Olson outperformed nearly every Republican candidate in statewide executive races, garnering more than 46% of the vote. Only Republican state lands commissioner candidate Jaime Herrera Beutler had a larger share of the statewide vote for a Republican, at 47% overall. King County Council President Dave Upthegrove won the land commissioner race.

Olson, a Peninsula School District board member, told The Center Square he was disappointed with the outcome.

“The geographic majority of the state voted for me, but this pocket in King County (33.6% for Olson) continues to control how everyone else in the state should live their lives,” Olson said, noting he was encouraged by the support. took it.

“To me, it’s an indictment that a million and a half people in our state say they’re unhappy with the guy running our show,” he said. “I think we will continue to lose significant numbers of students in the coming years to homeschooling, private school, or leaving the state.”

Like previously reported Enrollment in Washington public schools is down 4% since 2019, according to The Center Square.

“I ran to restore public confidence in our public schools and to try to reassure parents that our public education is focused on educating children against oppressive social and political ideologies,” Olson explained.

One of the most contentious issues facing public schools today concerns changes to Title IX under the Biden administration. Biden’s final rule The changes, which took effect in about half of U.S. states, expanded federal protections for LGBTQ+ students in athletics and expanded sexual harassment protections, among other changes.

Legal challenges have prevented more than half of the states from implementing the updated regulations, but that wasn’t the case in Washington.

Reykdal was also later pushed back tells school districts will not implement the recently passed Initiative 2081; This initiative is a parental bill of rights that allows parents and guardians of public school children to review educational materials and inspect student records.

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Supporters said it was a way to ensure parents weren’t left out of their children’s education.

Reykdal said the federal law provides the state’s 295 public school districts with protections that I-2081 conflicts with.

“Some of these records contain personal information and are protected under the Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and therefore cannot be disclosed without the student’s consent,” one summer post read. News release from Reykdal’s office.

Independent Women’s Forum Senior attorney Beth Parlato said The Center Square Reykdal has no legal standing in this matter.

“He is wrong because there is no federal law that says you can keep information about your students under 18 from parents,” Parlato said. “As a lawyer, I can tell you that it doesn’t matter what he says because this is the law; passed, and passed by wide margins. “He has no authority to tell anyone to break the law.”

IWF has joined lawsuits in other states successfully challenging the Biden Title IX changes.

“We will have a new administration on January 20th, and I can pretty much guarantee that this will be a high priority for the new administration and that Biden’s illegal rewrite will no longer be in place,” Parlato continued.

part of Reykdal guidance Once the Title IX changes went into effect, school districts were to provide training to each school to assign a Title IX coordinator to respond to any complaints or questions from students, staff or parents.

OSPI’s Office of Equity and Civil Rights was created to address these issues.

Central Square asked OSPI if the Office of Equity and Civil Rights had to respond to any issues so far this school year.

“A handful of school districts have contacted the Office of Equity and Civil Rights with questions regarding the Title IX rule changes that went into effect this summer,” OSPI spokeswoman Katy Payne responded in an email. “The ECR team does not characterize these as complaints; “Rather, they were questions of implementation, which are very common in any change of law.”

Like reported The incoming Trump administration this week is expected to quickly make changes, including one that could exclude transgender students from Title IX protections and impact school policies on student pronoun use and bathroom and locker room use, according to the Associated Press.

Chris Reykdal re-elected as WA state chief of public instruction